Entry to the Ancient Charnel House

Artist Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)

CultureFrench

Date1903

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 8 11/16 × 6 15/16 in. (22.1 × 17.6 cm)
Overall, Mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)

InscribedThe artist's description in French is written on reverse: "Entre du batiment dans lequel le trouve c'ancieu charnier de St. Severin et suite du cloitre dans le jardin du Presbytere". The negative number "4803" is written on the reverse. Translation: Entry of the building in which is found the ancient charnel house of St. Severin and beyond that the cloister of the Vicker's garden.

Credit LineMuseum purchase, Horace W. Goldsmith Fund and gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by exchange

Object number93.13.3

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a rectangular albumen print of the entrance to an old charnel house.

Label TextEugène Atget French (1856-1927) Entry to the Ancient Charnel House, early 1900s Albumen print Purchase, Horace W. Goldsmith and Art Purchase Funds 93.13.3 ~ Eugène Atget is a major figure in the history of photography whose fame has accrued entirely in retrospect. He began to photograph at the age of forty, and became absorbed in a documentary project which, during the last thirty years of his life, resulted in more than 10,000 glass-plate negatives of turn-of-the-century Paris and its rural environs. Although there were government-sponsored projects to photograph important monuments from the past, there was virtually no precedent for the type of personal documentation project that Atget conducted in Paris. Rather than highlighting the monumental, Atget focused his camera on the ordinary, but beautiful. His personal passion was to photograph everything of interest in Paris. He made his living by selling photographs to craftsmen, collectors of documents of Old Paris, and artists, who bought his prints to use as guides in their own work. Artists who bought Atget's photographs ranged from wood-engravers, society portraitists and established academicians to avant-garde painters like Braque and Utrillo, who made use of his perspective of Old Paris in some of their own works. Berenice Abbott is largely responsible for saving Atget's work. As a young photographer in Paris, she met Atget and was deeply influenced by him, and after his death she brought the bulk of his work to the United States. Those negatives and prints are today in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In addition to this photograph, The Chrysler Museum collection contains several of Atget's works printed by Abbott from the original negatives. However, because the present photograph is a vintage print made by Atget himself, it is unique and far rarer. Atget's inscription in French on the back of this print identifies his subject as the "Entry of the building in which is found the ancient charnel house of St. Séverin and beyond that the cloister of the Vicar's garden." Edited By: GLYExhibition History"Treasures for the Community: The Chrysler Collects, 1989-1996," October 25, 1996 - March 2, 1997 Published ReferencesDavid Harris, _Eugéne Atget: Itinéraires Parisiens_ (Paris: Musée Carnavalet, 1999),135. ISBN: 2-87900-435-7 A print of this photograph